Normally, this would have been a "Who said it?" but it's too late in the week. This isn't completely shocking, since the business wing of the GOP, which the WSJ speaks for, has always desired immigrant labor, and there's always been a split between that bloc and the more nativist rank-and-file talk-radio wing. But still:

Mr. Obama created a potentially fruitful opening to the GOP when he failed to do anything of the sort legislatively in his first term—a failure for which he was repeatedly scored in his September interview with Univision. A nimble GOP adversary might have seized the opportunity to present himself as the real immigration reformer.

But not Mr. Romney, who often pandered to his party's nativist wing (especially after Texas Governor Rick Perry entered the primaries), even endorsing what he called "self-deportation." That may have endeared him to one or two radio talk show hosts, but it proved a disaster on Tuesday.

And not only with Hispanics: Exit polls show that Asian-Americans went for the President over Mr. Romney by a whopping 73%-26%, an 11-point improvement over Mr. Obama's margin in 2008. How many other non-white groups can the GOP lose and still consider itself a national party?

No doubt this editorial will provoke letters denouncing us for being soft on the issue. Now is an opportune time to ask those disapproving readers how many more Tuesdays like this one they'd care to repeat?

Sean Hannity said Thursday he has “evolved” on immigration and now supports a “pathway to citizenship.”

Hannity told his radio listeners Thursday afternoon that the United States needs to “get rid of the immigration issue altogether.”

“It’s simple to me to fix it,” Hannity said. “I think you control the border first. You create a pathway for those people that are here — you don’t say you’ve got to go home. And that is a position that I’ve evolved on. Because, you know what, it’s got to be resolved. The majority of people here, if some people have criminal records you can send them home, but if people are here, law-abiding, participating for years, their kids are born here, you know, first secure the border, pathway to citizenship, done.”

Frankly, I find this turn of events rather stunning. I guess necessity is the mother of...evolution, or, to invoke two cliches in one sentence, elections really do have consequences. The GOP hierarchy wants this issue to be forgotten by 2016, so it's a lock that something will get done in the next year. Let's hope it's a real solution \for 12 million Americans who work and contribute to society, but without documentation.